If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Create your Kingdom - Guide for starters

Are you interested in the Clash of Kingdom strategy games, but you don't know where to begin? This thread is your friend. Here's a detailed explanation of how a CyK Tournament event works, from the beginning to the end. In a couple minutes you'll be ready to join the fray! Are you ready for war?

Index
1 - Signup phase
2 - Auction phase

2.1 - Regular auctions
2.2 - Bonus bids

3 - Tournament phase

3.1 - Strat structure
3.2 - Map conventions

1 - Signup Phase
Any game will start with a signup thread, where all you have to do is to guarantee your participation. A CyK Tournament is usually very long and it's not shocking to have it lasting a couple of months. Be sure you have enough free time to stick around. Dedicating a couple of minutes a day is enough to play decently, but remember the lifespan of the tournament event is pretty wide, especially if you make it to the finals.

2 - Auction Phase
The first half of the event is dedicated to the construction of your army. Although it might sound boring, that's actually pretty exciting, and you better start bewaring of the other contestants right away. Here's how it works.2.1 - Regular auctions

Once the time schedules are decided together, the phase can finally begin. Every day, the host will launch a new batch of commanders. The number of commanders per batch is usually around 5 or 6. From the moment the batch is announced, the contestants have 20 hours to bid for the ones they want to include in their armies.

Every contestant starts with the same budget. The actual quantity of these points will change game to game, but generally expect it to be around 300.

There'll be a dedicated thread for the auction phase, and to register a bid you just have to make a post and write in bold the name of the commander and the quantity you're offering to have him. For example:
30 Gokei
2 for Kyoukai
Ryuutou - 15

... are all valid bids. The only catch is you must offer more than the last valid bid for that commander, or your bid won't be taken into account. Additional rules could be added on the actual auction thread, but this bone structure is always valid.

Once 20 hours pass, the open bidding phase ends and the host won't accept any more bids written in the thread. The current highest offers will be reminded to the contestants and they'll be the starting point for the next phase: the silent bids.

Right after the open bids end, the players will have 4 hours of time to send the host one unique PM (private message) where they write their last offers. Players can send the PM anytime during these 4 hours. These offers will be kept secret by the host until the 4 hours expire. Again, you can't offer less than the quantity a commander started the phase with. For example, if the last bid for Ouki was 70, you can't offer 65 for him.

Also, remember to consider what the other players can think or do on their own silent bids. For example, if Ouki starts from 70, you can offer 75 but if one of your opponents offers 76, he'll steal Ouki from you. Generally, the higher you offer, the higher the chances of getting the commander.

At the end of said 4 hours, the host will post the final results of the auction day. Simply, the one who offered the highest quantity for a commander will get that commander, and he'll be included on the player's roster. At that point, the quantity he paid for the commander will be subtracted from the player's budget. For example, if you offer 75 for Ouki but someone else silent bids 76, you won't lose your 75 quantity because you didn't get the commander.

Once the auction day ends, the next one will start right away, with another batch of commanders. Note that, although the auction phase lasts a lot of time (2 or 3 weeks, likely) you only need a couple of minutes a day to play egregiously. You can join the open bids at your discretion, depending no your free time and on your strategies, but make sure to participate to the silent bids every time, because they're those that decide who gets who.

Playing wisely during this phase will influence greatly the actual tournament phase.

2.2 - Bonus bids

Once the regular auctions conclude, most of the known generals, captains and other characters will already be in someone's army. At this point, if players have some budget points to spare, they can buy interesting bonuses before the games start. One of this bonuses are... more commanders.

There will be a list of commanders with the relative price, and if a player has enough coins they can buy one or more of these. It'll be mostly the case of commanders from the past generations or featless characters, but never fear: the list of these bonus commanders will be made public right from the beginning of the whole auction phase, so you can make plans with large anticipation. If more than one player is interested in the same commander, of course, the host will have a day of open bids where the one who offers the highest gets the character.

This is the moment when you can buy other extras for your army. For example, if you bought Karin you'll be able to buy a certain quantity of Karin elites, if you bought Gekishin you'll have access to Poison Cats and Poison Dogs, and on like this.

On top of that, you'll have the chance to buy Prep Cards, monouse tools you can spend to grant your army additional days of preparation before the battle commences, ideal if you want Ousen to build a mountain fortress or you plan to have your strategists setting up traps in determined zones of the battlefields.

3 - Tournament Phase
Eventually, the time to duke it out has come! But how do you prepare a battle? How does it unfold? It's simpler than you expect.

It begins with the host creating a match thread where he shows the contestants the map and reminds them the rules. Contestants have generally 2 days to think of a strategy and submitting it to the host with a private message. Anyway, this strategy has a pattern that has to be followed thoroughly and moderated by the host himself.

3.1 - Strat structure

The layout includes three main sections:
_ the DEPLOYMENT, which is where you show the starting position of your armies and your units according to the map of the match.
_ the GENERAL STRATEGY, which is where you illustrate briefly what the point of your whole strategy, just to give a sketch of an idea to the readers.
_ the INDICATIONS, the core of the strat, where you explain one by one the purpose or the stance every commander of your army has.

Deployment. Can be done with a pic, a sketch, a text description, or a combination of them. This is only about the starting position of armies and units. It's the photography of the battleground at time zero. Be sure to make clear the size of the armies and the number of troops appointed to the generals. A sentence at most for each unit. For the sake of clearness, using a pic or some sort of graphics is highly recommended, no matter how basic, it always helps.

General Strategy. A rather simple overview of your overall strategy with your whole team. I would like this to be 2-3 sentences but not to exceed 5 sentences. This is not where you explain your strategy, that can be done in the thread. This is only for stating your general strategy. Just let the readers know approximately what you're trying to achieve and how.

Indications. The players' allowed to write up to three clauses for each one of his units/armies. They can be general indications, possible reactions in case an event occurs, specific in-battle movements and operations. These represent what the commander, given the conditions, must do. All the rest is up to the general himself, to the Commander in Chief's orders, and to how the battle itself develops. Be clear and concise, and keep in mind the nature of your commanders to exploit them at the best of their possibilities.

HERE you find an example of how a match thread unfolds and how strategies should be. Anyway, You can (and you're encouraged to) check out more than one match to get a better grasp of how this game works.

3.2 - Map conventions

The most commonly used map engine is the Age of Kings editor, but since not everyone is familiar with it here's a summary of the graphic conventions we use to represent this and that.

This is an example of a demonstrative map layout. Now off to take a look to the most recurring elements.

---

The cliff. They indicate the sharp separation between an elevated zone and what lies underneath. When used massively they indicate a particularly rugged area. Climbing or descending cliffs is feasible, but it takes time and it slows down the army, which usually is vulnerable during the operation. Because of this, when cliffs are present in a warzone, it's usually impossible to climb and descend, unless you own specialized units - for example Zhao cavalry for descending or mountain men elites for climbing.

When cliffs are concentric / used multiple times one above the other, it indicates an even steeper wall. The steeper it is, the harder is even for specialized units to operate. The discretion, in the end, will be up to the voters' interpretation and to the players' capability of offering valid examples or inferences to demonstrate the validity of their actions.

Example of Kaine's unit, particularly apt to lead descending attacks even in chains of double cliffs.

---

The hill. Represented like a softer elevation, they're supposed to be way more easy to climb and descend for all units than cliffs. In cases of battle, holding the higher ground is clearly preferable, especially if you had time to fortify it. Depending on how large the surface of the hill is, these elements can be more or less valid.

Most of the hills are supposed to resemble Kyuugen's position at Dakan Plains, although they can easily become more similar to Kokuyou's central hill if modifiers like forested sides or hints of cliffs are applied to the representation.

---

A river. When represented with a light blue color such as this one, the river is considerable uncrossable, but you can get around to get to the other side by special means or converting some trees into rafts. In general, though, you're supposed to think of it as something like an obstacle unless you have time, resources and a good reason to go on the other side, especially when you have enemies nearby.

That said, there are often points to cross the river more easily, for example, with a bridge. Bridges on the map are usually made of stone, so you can't think of setting them on fire but you can disable them in other ways. Repairing a disabled bridge takes time and manpower, but of course it's feasible if you're not directly engaged by the enemy. Bridges can be more or less wide, but in general any army has to shrink their ranks to pass through, which makes it an interesting point for defense battles or ambushes.

Another way to cross a river is through shallows. These won't require rafts or special equipment, as even infantry will be able to reach the bottom. Anyway, they need to be disarmed to cross, and just like cliffs, crossing shallows leaves the army extremely vulnerable.

Not all water is navigable, even with improvised rafts. If you see the color of the blue gets darker, you might want to stay away from it under any condition or circumstance.

A forest. As you'd expect, forest opens to a completely different kind of warfare, from guerrilla to ambushes. At the same time, open field tactics and direct charges won't work in a forest. Usually, it's possible to set fire and render portions of forest unusable, but since china is one of the most humid places on earth, fire really take a lot of time to attach and to spread. Either way, use it at your own risk and peril. Worth remembering that forest can be used to gather wood in peaceful or prep time, and with the right engineering knowledge there's a lot of stuff that can be made with wood.

Roads, of different kinds. According to their conditions, roads are supposed to give you a considerable marching speed bonus compared to grass or dirt. Roads aside, other artificial structures might be represented in particular maps, just like the following.

A village. They offer all a village does: reserves of food, civils, a few minor buildings. In lucky cases, farmed terrain in a measure that can become a factor in battles. Worth taking villages into account especially in large scale wars, but remember they don't offer much in terms of defensiveness.

A small town. Each time you see a representation like this one, think of it as a Sai / Retsubi sized town. Small walls, basic buildings, considerable larger population than a village. From this point on, sieges start becoming a concrete possibility.

A large city. This is probably how Kantan, Kanyou or Gyou would look like. Harder to attack without adequate equipment, also harder to defend without adequate numbers. These cities also host a large number of civils, and they generally rely on nearby villages to keep them all fed.

A fortress. Structures without civils that exist for the sole purpose of defending an area. You can see Kankoku Pass as a kind fortress placed in a mountain path. If you see one of these sitting in the middle of a map without a garrison, you'd very much want to put it under your control as soon as possible. All the rules for the large cities go, except the only food this structure needs is the strict necessary to keep the defending soldiers alive.

A military camp. Usually they just have point to exist when pinpointing a starting area, but in general a camp can offer a kind of a basic defense boost, especially if you spend some time and resources to improve it.

While this does seem simply a forest on top of a cliff, it's usually supposed to represent an invalicable limit. For the sake of realisticness, you can cross these ones too, but only in few numbers and with extremely specialized units. In general, seeing something like this means an obstacle that deters any attempt of crossing and encourages you to look for other paths.

There's a good chance you'll see more elements, but they'll be explained case by case within the specific map descriptions.

Do your best, and feel free to ask if something isn't clear! That'll be useful to improve the guide.

So, when you say only highly specialized units can cross the invariable limit or whatever, you mean mountain men and like Zhao's cavalry, right?

it's supposed to be an uncrossable limit, not a terrain for strategic use.

cavalry isn't making it no matter what. It'll have to be unarmed footmen, and they won't be in condition to fight after the climb. Say your army gets massacred near the invalicable limit, then maybe some fugitives might try to go there and cross to escape death, but it's nothing you'll be able to use afterwards anyway.

Pretty much everything. Anyway just a minor nitpick about the dark water = uncrossable

i have your maps under my nose rn and i don't think there's ever a case where dark water being uncrossable is a problem. You basically used it in one case only, and it has the water being kind of irrelevant

i have your maps under my nose rn and i don't think there's ever a case where dark water being uncrossable is a problem. You basically used it in one case only, and it has the water being kind of irrelevant

Did i color it back to light blue i wonder..

Anyway, the water might be irrelevant.. But who knows if our players can find a genius way to use it lol